@markboulton @avalonstar @Netlify If it helps, with @netlify you can specify which branches you'd like to automatically build and ignore commits to other branches. You could use that and only merge to your specified production branch when you want to deploy as a way to get what you need.
https://www.netlify.com/docs/continuous-deployment/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=answers-pnh&utm_campaign=devex#build-settings
My tweets and posts live here on my own domain these days.
You can explore them here and follow me on Mastodon instead of Twitter where I'm not currently active.